First Encounters
by Dude13
Summary: A babysitting job suddenly goes absurdly wrong for a fourteen year old redhead and her lanky crimson companion.[Oneshot]


"_FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I CAN'T FIND HIM ANYWHERE_!"

The eardrum-shattering shriek of distress suddenly sliced through the afternoon calm like a hot knife through butter, practically spooking a certain lanky imaginary friend clear out of his skin.

"Huh? What?" the direly startled Wilt yelped worriedly, pausing what had once been a mere stroll through the foyer to try and spot the source of the heartbreaking cries of distress. "What's wrong? Can't find who -_WHOA_!"

No sooner had he inquired, a fourteen-year-old redheaded girl tore in from the nearby dining room, hollering at the top of her lungs, waving her arms wildly, and looking as if she had recently escaped from a mental asylum.

"Wilt! Wilt! Wilt!" A nearly hysterical Frances "Frankie" Foster screamed imploringly, looking fit to burst in her paroxysm. "I can't find him! I've looked _everywhere_, and I just can't find him!"

"Frankie, can you just-" Wilt tried to interject through her frenzied rambling, but it was the near equivalent of trying to stop a freight train by throwing one's body out onto the railroad tracks.

"I lost him! I lost him! I lost him! I lost him! I lost him!" Frankie only continued to squeal dolefully, frantically racing about in circles around the bemused imaginary friend like a chicken with its head cut off. "I _lost_ him!"

"Can you _please_ tell me-" Wilt tried once more, but before he could get any further, he was instantly drowned out as the volume of the mortified teenager's shrieks suddenly seemed to intensify tenfold.

"LOST HIM! CAN'T FIND HIM! LOST HIM! CAN'T FIND HIM! LOST HIM! CAN'T FIND HIM!" Frankie screeched to the high heavens, nearly shaking the entire house off its foundations with her lungpower.

As the poor girl seemed to plummet into the deepest depths of insanity right before his very eyes, her frustrated friend held up his arm in a feeble gesture for her to put an end to her incoherent babbling.

"Will you _please_ just slow down-"

"_AAAACCCK_!"

_THUD! _

"AUGH!" Wilt roared in horror at the gruesome aftermath. "Oh _no_! Not okay! Not okay! Not okay! Sorrysorrysorrysorry..."

All he had wanted to do was signal for her to slow down ; _not_ neatly clothesline the frantic redhead at her neck with his winding arm as she made another loop about him. Whimpering with fright, he hastily dropped to his knees to tend to the decommissioned girl where she lay untidily sprawled upon the floor in a disheveled mess, rubbing her aching neck and gasping for breath.

"Frankie! Are you okay?" he cried fretfully, his good eye nearly bursting from its socket in his panic. "Frankie, please, just-"

"_MAAAAC_!" She suddenly wailed like a chorus of banshees, shooting upright into a sitting position with a start, abruptly forcing Wilt into stupefied silence.

"…What?" the profoundly perplexed imaginary friend murmured after what felt like an eternity of deafening silence.

"Mac! Mac!" Frankie squeaked miserably, swiftly clamping onto his arm and yanking him close. "I can't find Mac! I've looked everywhere and….and….I just can't find the little guy! I've looked, and I've looked, and I've looked, and he's _nowhere_ to be seen!"

As she sat there upon the floor, quivering madly like a lump of Jell-O and on the verge of tears, Wilt dutifully began to pat her back comfortingly, yet he couldn't help but gawk at her with the blankest of stares.

"…Um, look, not that I'm sorry to hear about that, but….just _who_ is Mac?"

* * *

"…You _WHAT_?" he hollered uncontrollably in mortified disbelief. Squeaking in dismay, Frankie glanced up from the sofa she had been checking over to frantically gesture for him to be silent. 

"Shhh! Shhh! _Please_, not so loud!" she begged before dropping back to her knees to peek under a nearby armchair.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Wilt yelped. "But I can't help it! You _lost_-"

"I know, I know, I know, I know!" Frankie whimpered pathetically as she crawled about the expansive living room, glancing about fervently. "C'mon, c'mon, where are you? Wilt, do you think that you actually might have seen him anywhere? Y'know, maybe you mistook him for an imaginary friend? He's this big, about this tall, he's got a big patch of kinda chestnut-brown hair on top of his head, and-"

"No!" he denied her flatly with a heavy stomp of his foot. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to help you unless you tell me first that how on earth you-"

"_Please_, you don't need to remind me that-"

"Frankie…you _lost_ an eleven-month-old baby!" Wilt blurted out, unable to hide his unimaginable dismay. Upon hearing this incredulous cry, the girl put a dead halt to her frantic search as she drew up upon her knees, moaning sadly.

"Didn't I just tell you that you _didn't_ have to remind me?" she groaned, burying her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry , I can't…I just….I can't believe that…_what_ on earth where you doing with him _here_ in Foster's anyway?" he began to scold. "I mean, Isn't the entire point of babysitting supposed to be that _you_ look after the baby in the comfort and safety of _his_ own home? I can't understand why you…that…how you…hey, c'mon, don't give me that look, please….oh _jeez_, Frankie…"

As much as he wanted to dutifully reprimand her for managing to pull of the most heinous of misdeeds, upon first sight of the sparkling tears welling up furiously in her eyes, he couldn't help but stop himself in mid-lecture.

"I…I didn't mean to…" Frankie squeaked in a hoarse whisper, nearly on the brink of breaking down sobbing right then and there. Eliciting a heavy sigh, Wilt quickly relinquished to the pleas of his all-too-compassionate instincts as he plodded over to sweep the distraught teenager into a warm hug. The second she felt his arm snake around her, the redhead whimpered and hurriedly clamped onto him like a frightened child grasping onto its parent.

"Honestly Wilt, I n-never wanted this to happen." She began to confess, furiously trying to fight back the urge to cry. "It started out just fine, I was at his apartment, his family had left he was h-happy as could be, b-but then the rabbit called-"

"Mr. Herriman _called_ you at Mac's family's apartment?" Wilt asked skeptically, to which the teenager nodded so furiously her head resembled a crimson blur.

"I-I left the phone number of where I'd be here, but…but he only called because there were some chores I didn't get to finish before I h-had to leave, and I told him I'd get to them when I was done and came back homr, but…b-but he just wouldn't get off my back about it, a-and I just couldn't hang up the phone or I'd hear about it later…a-a-and so I was all 'what's the worst that could happen if I stop back at Foster's for a bit?' S-so I got Mac in his stroller, took him over, managed to get through the dishes with him there, he was just fine, and then…and then…"

"And then…" her friend repeated softly.

"W-we were to the laundry room and…well, I… I had just finished putting the sheets in the dryer w-when….I turned around and he was just _gone_!" Frankie wailed heartbreakingly, burying her face in his shoulder. "I thought he c-couldn't have gone far, but…b-but I-I've been looking for half-an-hour now, and I can't…I haven't…I…"

The bitter truth being far too horrendous to admit, the girl finally went silent as she tightened her tenacious hold upon the imaginary friend, sniffling softly as she stewed in absolute misery, mere moments away from having a complete meltdown in her abysmal despair. However, never really one to remain in a depression of any sort, Wilt hastily tried to crack a weak smile in a futile effort to try and comfort the near hysterical girl.

"Frankie, don't worry, it's okay…we'll find him, we just-"

"No…" Frankie whispered in harsh refusal. "They're gonna lock me up for reckless child endangerment I _know_ it, they-"

"Shhhh, calm down." Wilt hushed gently as if tending to a fussy infant. "Don't say that, I know we'll find him. It'll be okay, we just-"

"Just _what_?" The dejected teenager whined. "Mac could be _anywhere_ inside the house at this point, there's so many places for a little kid like him to hide, and…and…"

As if sent by merciful divine intervention, a burst of inspiration struck the girl right then and there like a thunderbolt, snapping her out of her agonizing despair an into a renewed state of alacrity.

"Wilt?" she asked gently, peering into her friend's gaze imploringly.

"What is it?"

"Do you…um…do you….remember when _I_ was little?" she asked sheepishly while fidgeting nervously with her ponytail, much to her friend's slight puzzlement.

"Well, yeah, of course I-"

"So do you remember where _I_ used to hide from you?" Frankie abruptly blurted out, clasping her hands tightly as her eyes twinkled with a faint spark of hope. Quickly catching onto her plan, the imaginary friend couldn't help manage a soft chuckle.

"Remember? How could I forget?" he laughed, at which Frankie immediately burst into an ecstatic squeal of elation.

"You really mean that-"

Before she could finish, her companion had already helped her to her feet and was practically dragging her off through the hallways, flashing a sly wink as they sped off.

"Hold on, I think I know _exactly_ where to start!"

* * *

"…Wilt?" 

"Yeah?"

The fourteen-year-old scratched her head and cut the absolute paradigm of classic befuddlement as she glanced outside. "Um…_why_ are we looking outside a second-story window?"

"Oops! Sorry! Sorry!" Wilt began to instinctively hail her with a veritable barrage of hasty apologies as he gently pushed her aside. "No, no, it's not the window we need to check, oh jeez, not at all! I'm sorry! Sorry!"

"But why-" the perplexed girl tried to inquire.

"_That, _Frankie, is what we're looking at." Wilt pointed out breathlessly, jabbing outside furiously, not exactly out into the entire world that existed beyond the mere window, but much to the redhead's surprise, the tile overhang forming the roof of Foster's front porch.

A deafening silence suddenly settled upon the two as Wilt waited patiently for Frankie to speak, although as the seconds ticked by, he began to grow severely skeptical about the chances of that happening. For what seemed like an eternity, the teenager just gawked dumbly to where he pointed, staring stupidly at the tiles like a possum staring into the headlights of an oncoming SUV moments before being flattened against the asphalt.

Finally, after God only knew how many precious minutes had ticked by, Frankie looked up, stared him right in the eye...

"Oh my God, you have _got_ to be kidding me." she blurted out skeptically. Immediately Wilt let his winding arm fall limply at his side as an expression bearing the most extreme bemusement suddenly adorned his features.

"Wait, but you told me-"

"What is this, some type of sick joke?" Frankie snapped venomously, wildly waving her arms about in her intense aggravation. "Earth to Wilt! Earth to Wilt! This isn't exactly the best time for dumb gags, y'know!" she snarled. "Honestly, I need a good joke right now like a dead fish needs knee surgery!"

"But Frankie-"

"I told you to try and remember where _I_ would try and hide when I was little!" the incredibly frustrated girl began to chatter in fierce reemphasis. "I ask you to try and remember where I would go, and you take me to the top of the porch? I don't know what planet _your_ brain is on, but I honestly doubt I possessed suicidal tendencies as a three-year-old!"

"Frankie, _please_, I'm just doing what _you_ told me to!" Wilt countered, appearing clearly frazzled from by his friend's violent outburst. "You specifically asked me to take you to _all_ the places you would hide would you were little-"

"And you take me _here_?" Frankie nearly screamed incredulously. "Why on earth would you find me crawling around out _there_?"

"Well that's what _I_ always wanted to know!" He shot back. "I'm sorry you're upset, but please, you need to believe me! I can't even remember how many times I had to reach out here and grab you before _you_ wandered clear off the edge!"

"But _why_?" Frankie once again implored miserably. "_Why_ would I be-"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Wilt babbled unhappily. "_You_ always just told me you were just playing 'Adventurer' or something!"

"_What_? What kind of game involves-"

"Hey, you're the one who I had to fish out of the laundry chute all the time and keep from jumping off bookcases!" the frazzled imaginary friend protested. "Honest, all I want to do is exactly what you asked-"

"But I _seriously_ doubt that after coming to this place first, I'm just going to look out there and see an eleven-month-old baby just crawling around on top of the-_EEEEEEEEEEEK_!"

Wilt nearly banged his head upon the ceiling as Frankie glanced outside and let a hideously blood-curdling shriek of absolute horror escape from her throat.

"What? What is it-_WHOA_!"

In a pitifully comical fashion, for the next few moments all either of the two could do was scream at the top of their lungs in almost perfect unison as they both spotted the flash of brown go by the window.

"_MAC_!" Wilt finally managed to gasp as he cut himself off in mid-wail, dashing forward and reaching out with his winding appendage. "Don't worry little guy-"

"I'M COMING, PAL! HOLD ON!" Frankie screeched, and before her friend could do a think, the teenager hurtled herself through the window without a second thought, arms outstretched, soaring gracefully through the air-

_THUMP_!

"OW!"

_THUMP_!

"AUGH!"

_THUMP_!

"Yowch!"

_THUMP_!

"Oh n-"

_WHAM_!

Unfortunately, the colossal momentum of her heroic dive was far more than she needed, and after missing the target completely, the poor girl tumbled head over heels across the hard tile surface, rolling clear off and landing in a messy sprawl upon the porch.

Despite the catastrophe that had just befallen his dear friend, Wilt was far too busy in the midst of what he assumed was an emergency rescue of an innocent baby. Unfortunately, all he could do was pray fervently she hadn't been badly harmed in her horrific fall as he fished about wildly for the infant he swore was out there and seconds away from a nasty demise.

"Gotcha!" Wilt yelped in jubilation as his hand clamped around something soft and squirmy. Grinning in triumph, he hastily drew in his catch safely back inside.

"It's okay, it's okay!" he began to coo softly. "Don't be scared little guy, it's okay! Don't worry, you're safe now, you little – _AAAUUGGH_!"

As much as he desperately wished for it all to be nothing less than a terrible mind trick, his senses did not lie. What he and Frankie had both mistook to be the chestnut-brown hair of a particular missing infant had in fact been the reddish brown of an unfortunate squirrel who had happened to be in the wrong place at the worst possible time.

However, despite its initial shock, the badly-startled woodland animal at least was prepared to make sure the mysterious, freakishly tall beast that held it in his iron grip knew that he did _not_ like to be grabbed.

"_YOW_!" Wilt bellowed as he felt the tiny animal's razor-sharp teeth sink deep into his hand.

Roaring in agony, the imaginary friend did a mad dance of unimaginable pain as he waved his arm wildly in an attempt to shake his attacker loose, and with a few deft movement, the deranged mammal let go with a squeal of dismay and promptly sailed right outside the window.

"_YEEEEEEEEEEEEEK_!" the earsplitting screech rang to the high heavens.

Immediately an all-too-familiar redhead dashed out into the middle of the lawn like a bat out of hell. Thankfully, Wilt noted that she didn't seem to have any broken limbs from her previous fall, but unfortunately he assumed so precisely because she was racing about, flailing her arms wildly and wailing like a banshee as she tore ferociously at the frightened furball clambering all over her.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, _WHO_ THREW THAT?" she yelled in unfathomable dismay before breaking out into a pealing of disgusted screams as she felt the abhorrently cold little claws of a terrified woodland mammal half-crazed with fear frantically crawl about her. "Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off! _HELLLLLLLLP_!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Wilt began to babble apologetically. "I'm sorry Frankie, I didn't-"

"Sorry doesn't get this oversized rat off of me!" Frankie wailed pathetically as she ran about like a deranged lunatic. "_EEEK_! Its feet are like ice! Gross! Gross! Gross!"

"Frankie, wait, maybe-" 

"Don't just stand there! Please! _HELP ME_!"

"Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Hold on, I'm coming!" her frantic imaginary companion replied, and with that he whirled about and sprinted off towards the staircase, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he hurtled forwards as if a pack of wild dogs were trailing hot on his heels.

"Wilt? Wilt, where are you -_ack_! Wilt, look out!" A cry of dismay suddenly shattered his intense concentration, and Wilt suddenly halted himself just in time before he almost mowed down a petite old woman where she stood.

"_AUGH_! Sorry! I'm so sorry Madame Foster!" he cried as he skidded to an abrupt halt only inches away from the esteemed founder of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

"Dearie, please!" Madame Foster immediately tried to calm down the manifestly shaken creature. "It's alright, it's nothing to worry about, there's absolutely no need to rush-"

"But there is! There is!" Wilt blurted out frantically as he began to try and step around her. "See, we-"

Just like that, the words died upon his lips as comprehension of the fact that the little old lady was carefully cradling a napping baby with a snatch of brown hair struck the poor creature with the force of a freight train. As his good eye bulged out to the size of a saucer in his tremendous stupefaction, Madame Foster only grinned from ear to ear good-naturedly as soon as she realized he had laid eyes upon the child.

"Adorable little fellow, isn't he?" she chuckled, stroking the infant's head and looking for all the world like a grandmother tending to a beloved grandson.

"Y-you…y-y-you…you…" The flabbergasted Wilt began to stammer furiously as he pointed at the baby with an atrociously quivering hand, resembling a ten-foot-tall broken record player.

"Oh dear, Frankie didn't tell you?" Madame Foster laughed gently, evidently amused with his comical state of total befuddlement. "This was the child she was supposed to be tending to this afternoon, remember? I know, I know, it's a little odd that she took him here for a bit, but unfortunately, Funny Bunny demanded that she finish up some chores that apparently couldn't wait until she got home. Or at least, that's what I assumed when she walked in the door and head straight for the kitchen. Hmph, she really should just start giving me the number of where she goes, I swear, that rabbit of mine and his-"

"But…b-b-but…"

"Anyway, I thought that the poor girl had enough on her hands between someone else's baby and Lord only knows how much housework, so I decided to give her a quick break and look after the child while she was tending to the laundry."

"Madame Fos-"

"Thank goodness I just managed to get this little dickens to fall asleep." Madame Foster tittered, flashing the dumbstruck Wilt a sly wink. "Now when Frankie's all finished, she'll be able to take him back home without a problem. Oooh, speaking of, can you help me look for her and see if she's all set with everything?"

The lanky imaginary friend couldn't help but cringe violently as another heart-wrenching shriek suddenly emanated from outside.

"Yeah…. Um, about that…"

* * *

"…You sure this is the right way to his family's apartment?" Wilt checked good-naturedly with his guide as he plodded down the sidewalk. Frankie nodded wearily as she checked on the dozing infant in her arms. 

"Yup, we only have about a block or two left to go." She muttered, to which her lanky companion beamed happily.

"Great! That's not so bad." He trilled optimistically, to which the teenager only shook her head and sighed heavily, much to the imaginary friend's bemusement.

"Oh c'mon, what's wrong with _you_?" he inquired gently, immediately receiving a frosty glare in response from the battered teenager.

"You see this?" she grumbled, pointing at the infant. "Right here? This is an eleven-month-old baby, who doesn't know how to walk, can barely crawl as it is, and has to be carried everywhere. _I_, however, am a fourteen-year-old girl, who has _more_ than the necessary ability to transport myself using nothing but my own two legs."

"Your point?" Wilt asked absentmindedly as he strolled along, treating her last statement as if it was nothing more than a mess of aimless rambling.

"In other words, can you _please_ put me down?" Frankie begged, squirming about miserably. The scarlet imaginary friend however didn't even heed the immodestly irritated girl so much as a glance as he continued to promenade down the sidewalk, cutting a bizarre spectacle as he carefully cradled the redhead very much in the manner she herself carried the slumbering baby.

"Nuh-uh." He refused her all too cheerfully, forcing Frankie to elicit a long moan of despair as she instinctively broke out into a pout.

"Willllllllllllt…." She whined like a cranky toddler.

"I'm not exactly willing to let the girl who fell from a second story only to be attacked by a wild animal window walk about on her own with a baby, y'know." Wilt just explained dutifully with a hefty smile and not so much as a break in his stride.

"But-"

"Sure, we're lucky you didn't break anything, but you can never be _too_ careful, can you?" He added a bit too cheerfully for her mood.

Realizing that she was fighting for a dead cause, Frankie ceased her protesting and went limp in the imaginary friend's hold, grumbling darkly under her breath as he ferried her along.

"Oh c'mon, cheer up!" Wilt just chuckled at the sulky girl, encouragingly flashing her his trademark toothy grin. "After everything you've been through, you can at least try and enjoy the ride."

"I'm _not_ a baby…." Frankie just murmured solemnly in protest, forcing another laugh out of her friend.

"But _that_ little guy you're holding is, as you did _such_ a good job of explaining to me earlier." The lanky creature teased her playfully in an attempt to lighten her sour mood.

"Wilt, I just wanna-"

"Frankie, c'mon!" Wilt calmly cast her whining aside. "Lighten up a little! Just sit back, and in a few minutes we'll be back at Mac's apartment. Then we can put him to bed, wait a little bit for his family to get home, you'll get paid, and then this'll all be over."

For a few moments Frankie went deathly quiet as she glared daggers, desperately trying one last time to make it clear that she was in no mood to share such formidable optimism. As he just beamed at her with another radiant smile, she final accepted inevitable defeat with an annoyed huff.

"…Okay, I guess." Frankie murmured solemnly in resignation, much to her companion's delight.

"See, now don't you feel better that-"

"Let's just hope I _never_ get a call from the little guy's mom again asking me to-" she suddenly began to mutter darkly, to the slight irk of the crimson imaginary friend.

"Oh knock it off, we _both_ know what happened today wasn't Mac's fault." Wilt quickly reminded her. "He didn't do a single thing wrong, your grandma just-"

"I know, I _know_." Frankie hastily acquiesced as she stroked the slumbering infant's head softly as he stirred a little in his sleep. "But look, after everything that happened today, I really, _really_ don't want to take any more chances with my luck."

"Frankie, Mac _didn't_ do-" Her companion argued.

"Nuh-uh, my mind is definitely made up." She declared firmly with a scowl. "As soon as we're done, I'm gonna forget this ever happened. I swear, I never wanna hear from his kid or his family _again_."

"You're not actually _serious_, are you?" Wilt murmured incredulously, earning him a frosty glare.

"Oh _yeah_?" she sneered. "I promise, just you wait and see…"

**The End**


End file.
